Reading Notes of the Week / 1

This week’s reading notes taken from multiple books that I am currently reading:

1. “You’ve touched me without even touching me.”
2. “In the works riddled with male violence, the problem isn’t that testosterone can increase the level of aggression. The problem is the frequency with which we reward aggression.”
3. “I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me…the world of parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.”
4. “My favorite thing about you is your smell, your smell like earth, herbs, gardens, a little more human than the rest of us.”
5. “Testosterone’s contingent effects: making a monkey more aggressive but only toward individuals he already dominates. Hormones rarely act outside the context of the individual and his or her environment.”
6. “A low blood pressure meant that vital organs hold have difficulty obtaining sufficient fuel and disposing of waste…the more acidic the blood was, the lower the blood pressure. Administering sodium bicarbonate to shock victims snatched them from death.”
7. “Accurate information about someone’s emotions makes it easier to manipulate.”
8. “Lotus…frowing from mud, they symbolize a path of development from a primitive being to a fully blossoming consciousness.”
9. “We yearn for love — that we seek it — even when we lack hope that it really can be found.”